Roderick goes back on the offensive. He grabs me from behind, and I’m grabbing anything I can get my hands on. This amounts to about as much as the faucet, and I can’t very well rip that from the piping and beat him to death with it (as much as I’d like to). I kick up my legs, planting my boots on the edge of the counter, and push, slamming Roderick into the wall where the fridge used to be. I repeat this process twice before he loosens up enough for me to wiggle free. I drop to my knees and scramble through the living room, into the bedroom, and slam the door shut just in time for him crash into it.
I’m relatively calm for all the panicking I’d like to be doing. I drop to the floor, putting my back to the door, and rip the poison dart from my body. For whatever reason, it hurts a lot more on the way out than it did going in.
An explosion above my head, and my world is all bells and silence. Wood and dust rain down around me. I decide to stand, rather than diving to the floor like a normal person being shot at, and Roderick’s playing with a shotgun. Playing or operating the thing like a surgeon, I can’t be certain. He casually walks up to the bedroom door, reaches his hand through the hole he’s conveniently made, and unlocks the knob before stepping inside. He raises the shotgun and I turn, opening the refrigerator door. The stainless steel absorbs the buckshot. Most of it. A few beers explode and shower me. I glance up at the gallon of unopened milk in the back of the fridge. I grab it, stand, and swing blind over the door, connecting directly with the mask and its haunting persona. There’s a snap, a sickening crack, as Roderick’s head turns farther than I would have anticipated from a gallon of milk hitting a man square in the snout. His body crumbles to the floor.
I follow quickly behind.
8
CONTROLLED BURN
On nights and weekends, before he retired from the barbershop, Dad worked as a self-employed carpenter. He’d build decks, cement driveways, replace plumbing. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t fix or rebuild. My least favorite part of the day was his return home from work. Russell and I were required to greet him, to stop whatever it was we were doing, to hug him and kiss him and ask him about his day. He never shaved, but never grew a full beard. He could have used his face to scrub the shower or clean the grit off the grill. And when he bent down to hug me so I could kiss him, my body against his was like trying to take a nap on concrete. There was nothing to resemble comfort within his grasp, unless he happened to be shielding you from a forest fire or a meteor shower. How my mother ever made love to him to give Russ and I a shot in this world is beyond me.
Dad’s carpentry jobs kept his hands busy all day. If he wasn’t cutting hair, he needed to be building something, or taking it apart. Ma always said it was because of his injury. He was destined to be a tennis pro. His entire high school career, he was up before dawn to run five miles, eat a breakfast made of protein, shower, shave, and still pick her up in time before the first period bell. Scouts from across the country came to watch him play during his senior year. Four years in a row he carried The Spartans to a championship victory.
Celebrating a full ride on a tennis scholarship, he got drunk with his buddies and drove home, smashing the car into a telephone pole. They lived, but not without something to show for it.
When my father was released from the hospital the following day, his father was at home waiting for him. My grandfather asked his son if he intended to be this careless with his talents, and the lives of others. He said if my father couldn’t be responsible with the gifts God had given him, he didn’t deserve them, and proceeded to drop a thirteen pound bowling ball on my dad’s right hand—shattering the ring and pinky fingers to such a critical degree, he still couldn’t close his hand into a solid fist thirty years later.
But if he couldn’t be the world’s greatest tennis player, he could hang his hat on being the father of the world’s greatest tennis player: my brother Russell.
By the time I was born, Russell could wield a tennis racket better than he could use utensils at the dinner table. I tried to play, I really did, but I’m no athlete. It didn’t matter to Dad. I could do whatever I wanted. He was living vicariously the life he’d always intended for himself through his first-born.
I did whatever I could to get dad’s attention. I even intentionally started picking fights I knew I would lose, hoping that if I showed up with a black eye, he’d teach me to throw a few punches.
I was desperate for the connection.
The attention.
By the time I was in high school, I’d picked so many fights, I was sent to what Ma referred to as an “alternative school” to anyone who asked. But I’m not trying to impress anyone here. It was a school for screw-ups. Rumors spread quickly upon my arrival, and no one wanted to mess with me even though I’d intentionally lost every fight I’d started. But I’d started them. Which was apparently all that mattered to my new classmates.
“Stay away from Will Scott. He’s explosive. He’ll punch you in the mouth just for smiling at him if you have a better set of teeth than he does.”
And so began my seclusion from the human race, along with my inability to communicate properly without the comfort of that plaster wall in my face. For the students of our school, the Internet was believed to be our future, but only because no one believed in our chances of working in the real world. With so much time alone, I had plenty of hours to develop what would become my eventual career as a hacker. Which was actually something hip and edgy to aspire to in the nineties. Much like being a hipster is today.
During my entire four years at Screw-Up-Never-Going-To-Make-Anything-Of-Yourself-Academy-High, only one person gave me the time of day, and saw that I wasn’t, in fact, a violent and volatile man at all.
Then I got her pregnant.
I open my eyes.
I’ve slept. I can feel it in my bones. It was restless sleep, full of nightmares, but I slept. I’m grateful for the lack of sunlight, but I’m not appreciative of feeling like I’m a puzzle just taken out of the box. The last thing I want to concentrate on right now is reassembling myself. I’ve been doing that for months, and it hasn’t proven effective.
My clothes are wet. I’m lying in something warm. I’m afraid I’ve pissed myself this time, but I can’t find the strength the lift my head.
They say the best cure for a hangover is another beer. I’m just going to need someone to teach me how to use these opposable thumbs first.
It appears I went to sleep on the floor. I haven’t blacked out like this since Valerie left.
Valerie.
I dreamt of her death. Of everyone’s death.
What a brutal nightmare.
My head is lead, but I find the strength to lift myself with the help of my elbows. My shoulder screams at me to stop. Seeing the torn flesh, the blood, I nearly black out again.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
This. Cannot. Be. Real.
I can’t move because I’m bleeding out, not because I’m a drunk. Well, maybe a little because I’m a drunk.
I’m lying in a warm thick, liquid. My shirt soaked. The hairs on my legs feel glued to my skin. I touch the hardwood floors and bring my hand to my face.
I blink through the tears I can’t help but shed over the realization that these are my last, pathetic moments on earth.
It’s white. Not red.
I sob anyway.
Whoever coined the term, “There’s no point in crying over spilled milk,” obviously never woke up in a gallon of it mixed with his own blood and piss, lying next to a man in a gas mask.
Seeing Roderick triggers the surge of adrenaline my body needed to get off the floor, and I find myself slipping through milk, falling into the open fridge, and skittering like a crab to get as far away from this place as possible.
I decide the living room is as good as “as far as possible” and collapse again.
“Hello?” I call out. “Are you okay?”
The body doesn’t move.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
Still nothing.
I pull myself to my feet, take two steps forward.
The shotgun sits another two steps away. Four more steps total to get back into my room.
I reach the shotgun. I have to get down on one knee to retrieve it without passing out. I seem to have developed a serious case of vertigo.
“Hey!” I yell, gun raised, hands shaking. “Hey!”
No response.
I finish the journey back into the bedroom. I kick my friend in the side. “Wake up!”
It’s like kicking a bear. I imagine. I’ve never kicked a bear, but the way things seem to be going today, I won’t count the opportunity out.
The glass over his eyes reflects only me.
I’m a ghost. An alien from another planet.
I read the name on his jacket aloud: “Roderick.”
I kick his leg this time.
Still nothing.
I scan the floor. I’ve never seen a tranquilizer dart, but I imagine it looks just like the long pointed piece of silver with a red tag on the end of it right here next to my feet. I touch my uninjured shoulder. It feels bruised. As does my back.
I close the refrigerator door, but not before taking out a warm beer. I pop the tab, take a drink, drop to my knees next to Roderick.
I set the gun on the floor, and rest my left hand on his chest. I drum my fingers against his green military jacket.
I’ve spent the majority of my adult life living in denial, so it shouldn’t be too hard to pretend this isn’t happening.
I beat my fist against his chest.
“Wake up!”
I hit him again.
“Come on!”
And again.
“Who are you?” I demand of him.
“What happened to everyone? Why is everyone dead? Why am I the only one alive? Is this some kind of test? Biological warfare? Am I immune? Am I super hero?”
Sitting in the warm, curdling milk, I look back and forth between Roderick and the empty carton.
I believe I just killed the only other living person I’ve encountered today.
I’ve never seen a dead body before. I skipped all four of my grandparents’ funerals. With the mask on he doesn’t seem real, but rather just like the mannequin from Mr. Jones’s apartment. I leave it on him while I go through his pockets.
First, I find a gun. I don’t know much about them, but this one appears to shoot bullets, not poison arrows.
He has no wallet, credit cards, or cash.
Every inch of skin is covered.
The only piece of identification or helpful information I discover on his person is an iPhone. With zero expectations, I press the power button. The tiny white apple with a bite taken out of it appears on the screen.
A working phone.
I set it down on Roderick’s chest. It could be a trap.
“Come on, come on, come on.”
The phone vibrates.
Roderick has seventeen new notifications.
There are no apps on his phone.
Just clocks. Rows and rows of clock icons.
Each notification is an alarm which has already sounded.
Each one titled, “Controlled Burn in…” followed by a number.
I say the words out loud. “Controlled Burn?”
There is a timer counting down in place of where the actual digital clock should be at the top of the screen.
I ask the masked man on my bedroom floor, “What is a controlled burn?”
He has nothing to say, but I demand answers.
“Who are you, Roderick? Huh? Answer me!” I scream at him. I grab at the snout of his gasmask, ripping it from his face. I hurl it across the room, and look down at the rhino from the bar who mistook me for Adam the other night and nearly killed me with his fists.
I change my clothes. I’m starving. There’s nothing in this place but spilled milk and warm beer. I grab a duffle bag from the closet, throw in some shirts and jeans and few pairs of clean underwear. I place the pistol and the box of shotgun shells on top. I leave Roderick to spoil along with the rest of this town. The closest major city is Pittsburgh. It’s an hour drive, maybe thirty minutes if I can take to the roads at 100mph. I will drive until I find life, until I find answers.
I open the door, bag over my shoulder, shotgun in hand, and there’s a dead wolf in the hallway.
In the front yard, the birds have finally found something better to do.
They’re dead.
Every last one of them.
It feels as though thirty years have passed since I’ve been outside. The temperature has dropped twenty degrees. It no longer feels like summer. I notice steam rising out from the sewers carved into the curbs. I walk into the street and try to see inside. I take out Roderick’s phone hoping to use it as a flashlight. The timer in place of where the clock should be has twenty-eight minutes left.
I arrive at my car, but the vintage 1970 Lamborghini Espada in Mr. Waterman’s driveway catches my eye. I don’t know much of anything about cars, but I’m an expert with this particular vehicle given the number of times Mr. Waterman has pulled me aside to tell me all about the stupid thing. I take a brick from his landscaping and hurl it through a bay window. The alarm wails at its best attempt to thwart me. Mr. Waterman is at his kitchen table, his face resting on the sports section of the newspaper. His pants are soggy. The entire place smells of shit and piss. The keys to the Lamborghini hang on hooks next to a calendar with the same damn kitten on it that Mr. and Mrs. Phelps have on their wall. I jiggle the keys in front of Mr. Waterman, ask if he minds, thank him, then take a knife from the kitchen counter and jam it between the kitten’s eyes.
My apartment is less than a mile from the zoo. I go out of my way to drive by. Here I stop and stare at the mass execution of wildlife. The elephants. The alligators. The monkeys. Their lifeless bodies lay about the entrance. The place is a haunted battlefield. Whatever killed off the rest of this town must have had a much slower effect on the animals.
I roll down my window and lean my head out to look up at the sky. What I am looking for exactly, I cannot say. Hope? Maybe.